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New submitter ptr_88 writes: "The Free Software Foundation has opposed Mozilla's move to support DRM in the Firefox browser, partnering with Adobe to do so. The FSF said, '[We're] deeply disappointed in Mozilla's announcement. The decision compromises important principles in order to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser market share. It allies Mozilla with a company hostile to the free software movement and to Mozilla's own fundamental ideals. ... We recognize that Mozilla is doing this reluctantly, and we trust these words coming from Mozilla much more than we do when they come from Microsoft or Amazon. At the same time, nearly everyone who implements DRM says they are forced to do it, and this lack of accountability is how the practice sustains itself.'"

So doesn't this mean that someone could just fork Firefox without the DRM?

DRM in Firefox will download a binary module from adobe, and it can be enabled/disabled by the user.
No need to fork... that's way too much work...

Most likely this is just like flash plugin, except the API surface will be smaller, the module will be better sandboxed, there will be real security and work to ensure users privacy (Andreas CTO at Mozilla promised this in his blog post on the topic).
With some luck this will allow us to kill flash and silverlight... a well encapsulated module is certainly less evil.

The last time Mozilla stood their ground on the H.264 format do you remember what happened? Yeah, you'd find that most HTML5 videos did not work and one would have to resort to using flash. Their move was irrelevant since every other major browser had support for it (Safari, IE, Chrome)...

So yeah, tone down the "they are big enough" speech... past "experiments" prove they are not "big enough".

The endgame of having the largest user base is not as important as their original manifesto of building and maintaining a free and open browser.

How history is rewritten.

Wasn't Firefox just code abandoned when Netscape went under?

Firefox, actually Phoenix and then Firebird as they kept running into trademarks issues, was a fork of Mozilla which was based on the Netscape code when Netscape went under. Mozilla still lives on as SeaMonkey, which is what I'm posting from. Phoenix was a lighter version of Mozilla and now it is heavier then SeaMonkey while having much less functionality as it is going for the lowest denominator, namely users who don't even understand menus.

There's the ideological argument why DRM is bad: it places control of the content in the hands of the content publishers. I'm fine with paying for the content that I want, but I object to the publisher being able to control how I consume it. If I want to play it on a tablet or computer running a niche OS that isn't worth the investment for the publisher to support, then I should be able to as long as I don't demand support from the publisher.

There's also the economic argument, which is a bit more compelling: it prevents entire industries from emerging. Take portable digital music players as an example. They only exist because the DRM on CDs was so weak that a court ruled that it didn't exist. Apple was selling so many iPods for a while that they were buying the entire first two years of production output from flash factories before they were even built. Without that kind of investment, we wouldn't have cheap SSDs today. Various publishing industries have tried to kill the home video recorder, the tape player (no copying music from the radio, or from your CDs to play in the car!), portable digital music players, and so on. The reason that iTunes can rip CDs but not DVDs is simply that Apple is a DVD licensee and so can't break the trivial DRM without losing their license to sell DVD players. A modern phone can store (recompressed), several DVDs worth of video, but DRM has prevented the market emerging for consumer-friendly DVD ripping software. How many people own tablets and would like to be able to rip their DVD collections with a one-click ripper and copy the movies across with a simple interface? I'd imagine, most of them, and yet the only companies that have tried to do this have been sued out of existence.

Javascript means its EASY to disassemble AND modify on the fly (think no script). When its easy to disassemble and modify, then it won't function. Any form of byte code that runs in an open source interpreter is going to be fairly trivial to work around.

DRM is closed source specifically because the obsfucation of the process is the only thing that provides any protection at all.

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon
uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in
page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case"
buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see
if something is chosen from a former search. A small UI detail like that is not, in itself,
as important as the fact that Mozilla Foundation could make such a careless mistake.

3) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging
flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are at least 13 add-ons for re-starting
Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. [mozilla.org] I use Restartless Restart. [mozilla.org]

Whoever writes the Pale Moon web site seems to be very knowledgeable and a good manager.

More information about Pale Moon: See the Pale Moon FAQ [palemoon.org]. Here is a quote:

"As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverting Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser -- having transformed it from an optimized build into a true "fork" of Firefox."

Have you seen $311,000,000 of yearly development of Firefox?Mitchell Baker [wikipedia.org] is the "Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". She is a lawyer with no technical knowledge, apparently.

Who gets the money? How it is spent? The amount of money is shocking to me. When someone clicks on an ad, Google may get 10 cents or 50 cents or $1.50. The cost to Google of linking to an ad is maybe.01 cent? It's easy money, pai

Bullshit. I use Firefox since years, and it has been 64 bit for ages. Also, it rarely crashes (I think the last time it crashed for me was some time last year, but really, don't remember details). The main source fore restarts are the high-frequency updates.

Somehow, they discovered that their previous CEO, who had made it clear that he would absolutely refuse to put DRM in Firefox, had made an embarrassing political donation, and forced him out of the company.

DRM is about gaining leverage over "playback devices" and ultimately "users" in order to jack prices a bit higher, a bit longer Ã" but not so long as to tip things to darknets too much. YouÃ(TM)re right that all "robust" DRM schemes are cracked, rapidly. ItÃ(TM)s clearly not about preventing copying.

and

a mission to do X with the Web, without hundreds of millions of users loving the products upholding that mi

I still remember when Firefox was Firebird (no, not the database) or whatever. The barebones web-light version of Mozilla suite. And their goal wasn't implement everything under the sun AND the kitchen sink in a browser, but steer away from it. I guess they grew up. I blame Google's money:D

Firefox adopting DRM is not what is allowing the practice to continue, it is people consuming it. If Firefox did not support DRM directly, the content providers would offer a custom (closed source) tool that did. Until users decide not to view DRM content, the practice will continue, with or without Firefox.

What Firefox is doing is making the hard choice to be flexible and give users the opportunity to view the content or not, they are empowering their userbase to make the choice. Sadly, this means Firefox values user choice more than the FSF. I don't like DRM and I do not plan to view DRMed content, but many people will and if Firefox wants to survive they need to give their users that choice.

If you don't like DRM, don't consume it. But stop trying to take away my freedom to do so, thanks.

Look, I don't care much about ideological debates, but could we stop with the nonsensical wording? How exactly does one "consume" DRM? You can perhaps take advantage of, support, view content which makes use of DRM. That's all fine. But please don't "consume" DRM. You can't, not anymore than you can "consume" highways or the history of Somalia.

On a minor note, I should also point out that being against Mozilla implementing DRM support on Firefox does not "take away your freedom" to view content which makes use of DRM. Unless you're forced by someone or something to use solely Firefox for viewing all your movies or something like that, in which case you should probably reconsider the focus of your digital freedom fighting.

Or install a different OS on the phone or watch the video on a TV or run the video through analog & back before attempting to stream it, or... But, unless one was surprised by a sneaky automatic update, one probably knew the score before considering to spend money on renting a video. One could pocket the money & visit slashdot instead.

Stop taking away the freedom to encourage systems that take away your freedom? You are supporting the freedom to restrict the freedom of others, but not the freedom to not support supporting the freedom to restrict the freedom of others? How can logically defend that position?

The fact that a web browser that I use includes things that legitimize DRM is certainly not a win for me. The only possible "win" for me is when someone creates a Firefox-based web browser that doesn't include this garbage.

I have principles I am not willing to surrender. I can see that you may not have such things. Even the mere existence of DRM is a disgrace.

Except that RIGHT NOW, TODAY, Firefox supports a plug-in architecture which allows Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight to run and play DRM-encumbered content. Just like every other major browser we've been using for the last two decades. Now they want to make a better, safer, way to do it, and people are upset?

Except that RIGHT NOW, TODAY, Firefox supports a plug-in architecture which allows Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight to run and play DRM-encumbered content.

And RIGHT NOW, TODAY, many computers support an x86 architecture which allows Windows to run and play DRM-encumbered content. Except that neither x86, nor NPAPI for that matter, were ever specifically designed to do that.

On the other hand, non-DRM uses for EME are entirely non-existent. Sure, you could have a free EME plugin, but what would be the po

Mozilla have always had a practical approach... This is nothing more.
This is no worse the binary plugins like flash, silverlight and Googles VLC-based (I think) DRM infected plugin (used by HBO in Europe).
Seriously, this is the less evil.

If Firefox did not support DRM directly, the content providers would offer a custom (closed source) tool that did.

Why would they even bother? I think it far more likely that they would simply put in a "We're sorry, but your browser is not supported at [service] at this time. Please consider using Google Chrome, Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Apple Safari. Our apologies for the inconvenience."

Given the choice between e.g. watching the latest episode of a show, or.. well.. not, guess what most people are going to do, even if you have made the dangers of DRM clear to them.

The reason is apathy... those dangers have simply not yet materialized in any way that it has truly affected people. DRM server for an 8-year old game goes down? "Well I wasn't really playing it anymore anyway." Can't save/record Netflix content and after a while you find out that the show they used to have, they no longer have, and so you can't continue watching it? "Oh well, what else is on..."

The FSF can, and should, condemn Mozilla all they want for being pragmatic; the FSF cannot be thus. But Mozilla can, and should, lest FireFox becomes increasingly marginalized. Now if the FSF could convince Apple, Google, Microsoft to not include DRM schemes...

Your missing the point, and the problem. Nobody is saying users should be prohibited or prevented from installing digital restrictions software. What we're saying is Mozilla shouldn't be encouraging, or enabling it. Rather they should be discouraging users from using it. Words like “spyware” and “malware” should be used to describe these anti-user digital restrictions systems.

The user should not be forced to give up control, security, and privacy just to accommodate an industries interests in making greater profit. Largely this profit is made via deception, not via preventing piracy using digital restrictions. Pirates will continue to be able to pirate regardless of widespread us of digital restriction systems.

However what digital restrictions do is hand over more and more control to the companies that be of users systems and use of the legitimately purchased goods. As an example if I purchased software in 1990 I'd generally be able to install it on any system I owned. I didn't have to re-purchase the software when I bought a new computer. Nor did I have to tell the entity anything about myself.

If Firefox did not support DRM directly, the content providers would offer a custom (closed source) tool that did. Until users decide not to view DRM content, the practice will continue, with or without Firefox.

Whatever other people decide to do, I don't knowingly view DRM content in my home. There's no need. There's so much good content that doesn't have DRM, that I doubt I'll ever miss it.

I've contacted the CTO at agal@mozilla.com about this on behalf of my company and let him know that Firefox's one core advantage over all the other major browsers has been it's strong stance on freedom. More people need to speak up if there is any hope to effect change though.

If Mozilla gives up its users they've got nothing left to offer. They need to stop following Chrome and Microsoft in a downward spiral. Copying Google & Microsoft's bad ideas and practices is not how you become loved. No, it's these types of bad practices which caused users to abandon those other major browsers in the first place and move to Firefox.

It's time for Mozilla to take charge and lead again. Show its users it's got what it takes to stand up for its users. With the right choices people might actually begin to respect the browser maker again.

First, I am against DRM. I think it restricts fair use and innovation, is spyware, and defends obsolete business models.

But what Mozilla did was a good step. Almost every browser in the wild ships with a flash plugin. Flash is worse than any CDM.

I think EME improves current situation, when some websites don't rely on flash anymore.

Most DRM is a rootkit, and not a honest software which balances the content owner's and the users interests. The sandbox approach from Mozilla is very non-intrusive in comparison to other DRM systems, and other EME browsers. I never liked installing any DRM software on my computer, as I give it full access to my system, and I will never be abled to distinguish its behaviour from malware. But when the sandbox really is as restrictive to the blob as it should be, I will probably even use the DRM.

This step of Mozilla will make some content owners accept less intrusive DRM, which is good.

Flash is a well understood protocol and there are plenty of tools out there to strip the security from flash video streams.
I'm inclined to think it's better the evil we know than some html DRM that we don't.

It's not just flash, it's also silverlight and googles DRM infected videolan plugin that this avoid...
Things like flash have giant codebases and can spy on users, Andreas, CTO at Mozilla did promise in his blog post that he would ensure privacy of users and so that adobes DRM thingy can't spy unhindered.

IMO this is the lesser evil.

Either way, the majority just want to watch netflix, they don't care. And this will provide a less buggy experience than flash or silverlight.

Personally, I think that when the revenue stream from online distribution becomes the primary source of income for the movie industry, then DRM will go away. Because DRM will always provide an inferior experience, more bugs, less stability and it is more expensive to stream... Than some static stream which can be distributed using a simple CDN. I think we have to be patient, DRM will die on it's own.

I don't think a DRM should be opposed because then you can't pirate anymore.

Sure, everyone is a pirate. YT videos are free and everyone can watch them, why would I pirate them?

His point (hopefully) is that you don't need flash to play flash videos. Will EME videos play in VLC, MPlayer, FFmpeg?

That is exactly my point. I hate to use the build-in video player in FF (and the build-in Pdf viewer is horrible, too). Also I want the advantages of a computer: that I can save the video and watch again later. Why should I degrade my computer to a TV (streaming only)? I know that Netflix and Hollywood wants to kill the computer model, I don't need Mozilla to help them with that.

lol, they wrote a wrapped for another companies plugin. That's it. You don't have to use or install the DRM. All they're doing is giving you a "Safer" way to install it. They're taking lemons and making lemonade. This idea that open software shouldn't be open to closed software is misguided and arrogant. The one thing open source needs to avoid is giving corporate management the idea that when they use open source they're going to be somehow pigeon holing themselves. It needs to be REALLY open. Eventually p

Can't we just compile a version without EME? I mean Stallman should have just pointed that at least Firefox is truly free unlike IE, chrome and others whilst reminding us that we can just recompile sans EME. This is yet another case of failure withing the Free community; Destruction without ensuring the core values are witheld.

The Free Software Foundation want's Mozilla to stop enabling companies from taking away control from the user. These companies have malicious intent and putting up pirating as it presents a reasonable explanation as to the "need" of these systems. Digital restrictions don't actually prevent pirates from pirating content. It's that simple.

If all the major browser vendors succumb to an easy to use digital restriction mechanism. We're all going to be negatively impacted even if the browser we use don't enable

Without digital restrictions management, how would you recommend to enforce a time limit on watching a video? Most people aren't going to want to pay a "purchase" price (such as $20) to watch a movie once.

Consider these three blog posts from three Mozilla figures, including Eich: [snip] Eich stood firmly in the way of Mozilla incorporating DRM into Firefox. Now that he's gone, and his technological authority with him, Mozilla immediately caved to Hollywood interests.

Current support is accomplished by interfacing to the OS, the cisco binaries are not out [livejournal.com] yet, but we can hope [google.com]. And then Mozilla would still need to implement [mozilla.org] it and then it would take at least 12 weeks until it is tested and ships to the users.

Firefox would suffer a large drop in market share if they refused to support features that a significant portion of their userbase would consider critical. Being known as "that browser that doesn't work with Netflix" isn't the road to success.

If you don't like DRM, that's fine. The average joe doesn't care, and he's going to drop a browser in a heartbeat if it's stopping him from watching House of Cards or whatever other content he wants.

Maybe they need to stop putting marketshare above all else? It's bad enough how every version is progressively dumbing down the UI in an attempt to attract mainstream users. They did just fine long before they had the marketshare they do today. And they sure as hell didn't get off the ground by marketing to the non-technophile masses.
Are there benefits to increased marketshare? Absolutely. But when did that become the most important factor in designing a web browser?

Marketshare is crucial for a browser that stands aside from all others in the market with its own rendering engine. If its market share falls into single digits, websites will simply stop being tested against it. And regardless of what anyone says about standard-conforming HTML and CSS, the hard truth is that without such testing, websites still do break even in this day and age. Do you want Firefox to be like Opera, the browser that struggled hard against getting regularly broken by popular websites (like

Most of the criticism comes from people who haven’t been bothered to go and read what Mozilla’s written about the issue (or just suck at it). If these people had, we’d have no complaints of Mozilla forcing users to use DRM, bundling propitiatory code, or ‘giving up’ on user’s freedom and rights.

Essentially all that is happening is Adobe’s CDM is going to be implemented as an optional, monitored, special-type-of-plugin.

I’d say it’s no different from Flash, but it is going to be different. It’s going to be more secure, and presumably less buggy (being a ‘feature’ of Firefox). Once Firefox implements EME, there’s really no reason for Flash or Silverlight to continue to exist. Sure, this setup sucks. But I think Flash sucks more.

As for ‘giving up’: Mozilla can only be influential if it has influence. The primary source of Mozilla’s influence is the number of people using Firefox, which isn’t currently very big. Not implementing EME won’t help that. As others have said, this is not the hill to die on.

This all leads nicely onto my second point:

2. People who use Chrome

One of the best Tweets I found on the issue was somebody threatening to switch to Google Chrome because of this. I think the irony here is clear.

Yet, what astounds me more is not people threatening to switch, but people already using Chrome who want Mozilla to protect their rights.

Google is a for-profit company which exists to exploit users data. It’s collaborated with the NSA. It’s helped to lead the charge with Microsoft and Netflix for EME. Why on Earth, then, would you give Google support by using Chrome?

The single easiest thing you can do to support Mozilla is to use Firefox. It gives Mozilla the influence it needs to fight.

3. People who think Mozilla can single-handedly ‘change the industry’

I hate DRM as much as the next guy and I think copyright is fundamentally broken - it’s why I’m a member of the Pirate Party, it’s why I donate to ORG and EFF, and it’s through these avenues I expect to see real change.

Mozilla can only change the industry with user support. And users don’t care about DRM, they only care that video works. We clearly saw this with WebM and H.264.

There’s work to be done, but it can’t be done if Mozilla loses its influence, and it can only be done with the support (not ire) of other organisations.

Users want DRM. We should give them DRM. That doesn’t mean Mozilla supports DRM, and it doesn’t mean Mozilla can’t educate users about what DRM means (and there are some very good signs of that being bundled into Webmaker soon).In conclusion

Don’t be disappointed in Mozilla.

Be disappointed in Google, Microsoft and Apple for implementing this first, and backing Mozilla into a corner.

Be disappointed in Netflix and its friends (including, surprisingly, the BBC!) calling for DRM.

Be disappointed in your elected representatives creating an environment where it is potentially illegal to say specific things about DRM.

Now go out, educate users about what DRM means, and why it’s bad. Use Firefox, and donate time or money to Mozilla to give it the influence it needs. Support organisations (such as EFF, ORG, FSF, FSFE) and political parties who represent your views on DRM and Copyright reform.

This is by no means the end of the battle over DRM and Copyright - it’s just the beginning.

One of the best Tweets I found on the issue was somebody threatening to switch to Google Chrome because of this. I think the irony here is clear.

If we're going to use a browser that promotes DRM it might as well be the one with an objectively superior code base. Mozilla can't compete with Google on technology alone and there's really no reason for them to exist if they're just going to be another corporate whore.

So did you read the blog posts by Andreas (CTO at Mozilla) where he writes about how the CDM module will be less privacy invading and not have access to everything on the system, like flash, silverlight, and various other binary plugins.

Here we go again. The usual FOSS battle between impossible idealism and pragmatism.

If Firefox wants to allow for a plugin that enables DRM, what of it? The users can make their own choice. They're not including it in the browser.

I know it's popular to pay lip service to the FSF but if they had their way we would all be hypocrites. Just posting on/. with all the evil minifed javascript would make us sinners. Of course, the FSF morals don't extend to it having qualms about taking [fsf.org] HP, Google and IBM di

I don't want to stop you from running free software, the FSF wants to stop me from non-free software. This is the fundamental difference. I don't impose my views on you, they want to impose their views on everyone. Their views are fundamentally extremist, mine are not.

Their ideas of a total ban on non-free software would infringe on my views. My way allows for you to run a free-software system while allowing me to run non-free software. They don't want to give me the option of running non-free software. They would rather i have nothing that use proprietary software

You are like the insane anti-abortionists who wants to ban the practice. I am the one who wants to make individuals to have a choice. I don't impose my views on you and would like you not to infringe on my right to do what i like. It's very simple.

Most do not understand about DRM, and that is what Mozilla is acting upon--complacency. Sure, you have a handful who understand the dangers of DRM, and why it is important to have a free internet and free open software but not enough. That is why Mozilla caves in, not enough users hold them accountable. Most of their funding comes from Google anyway. More need to be educated about this. When Stallman started the GNU operating system, their numbers were few. Now GNU is a bigger force. It may be time for another browser that respects the users' freedom. To Mozilla, I say, Fork You!

The decision compromises important principles in order to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser market share.

The iconic animated version of Let It Go [youtube.com] voiced by Idina Menzel is approaching 230 million views on YouTube --- all licensed Frozen content distributed through YouTube alone probably accounts for 500-550 million page views, with no end in sight.

These are big numbers, and big numbers matter to Google ---

which isn't paying the Moz Foundation $300 million a year for links to mass market content Firefox can't display, but its rivals can.

The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. The original contract expired in November 2006. On 20 December 2011 Mozilla announced that the contract was once again renewed for at least three years to November 2014, at three times the amount previously paid, or nearly US$300 million annually.

The fact that I actually agree with the FSF's position is irrelevant. Why is it that, the only time the FSF gets into the news, it is when the organization is spouting "Negative Waves"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]

Chrome has nearly 50% of the browser market share all it itself... if Mozilla had just decided to not support it, then all it would accomplish by not implementing it is delegating itself to a future "unsupported browser" list... we'd be back to the good old days (sarcasm intended) when IE had a dominant market share and half of the websites out there wouldn't support anything else, except this time it'd be chrome and not IE that you'd have to have.

What, you think that all the existing video DRM would magically disappear? Firefox and Chrome already actively support DRM through proprietary binary plugins like Flash, which have total access to your PC. All this DRM standard is doing is moving as much of the existing DRM as possible into web standards and giving the proprietary DRM binary code as little access to your computer as possible.

I'm not sure which part of Mozilla's statement is "well thought out, well argued". Is it the part where they pretty much just go against everything they've ever stood for?

And who's still using Firefox, anyway. Chrome is faster and has all the bells and whistles and Epic is faster still. The only Mozilla product I use is Thunderbird, until the day I find something better. Then, I'll never give Mozilla a second thought.

They have every right to decide to use DRM and I have every right to ignore them. I ju

Just out of curiosity, any of the people complaining here about Mozilla caring about market share, actually supported the Mozilla Foundation financially or by other means before screaming and shouting at them because they try to maintain theirselves "commercial" enough? They need to matter in order to obtain funding, unless we decide to pay for the product. Otherwise FF is open source, grab the sources and maintain a DRM free version of it, named IceWolf or whatever you like. Do any of you feel up to it!?

They need to matter in order to obtain funding, unless we decide to pay for the product.

Tell me about other browsers specifically providing DRM support. IE? Great example. I stopped using FF when they started with the rolling releases nonsense. And most FF users DO PAY to use the browser, via search traffic. After the rolling releases, they started the piss-poor attempt of cloning the chrome interface - without easy fallback. Maybe they should focus on implementing stuff that the users want (are the memory leaks gone? are the devtools integrated and working, or do I still have to install fireb

They made like $300 million last year. There is no way that I, or even 1000 people like me, could give enough for them to listen to us. It makes far more sense to give to a smaller fork that is still on the correct path, and doesn't see Google money so smaller donations matter.

What is your point? Netscape open sourced the code and created the Mozilla project specifically to open source their browser after the company was failing.

It's like you are saying laws against killing people are religious because "thou shalt not murder" was a religious teaching or something and therefor no other relationship can be made with barring killing. The fact of the matter is, Mozilla has always been about open source and was born out of open source even if it's initial code base was closed and prop

Logic isn't one of your strong points I guess. Mozilla most certainly did not start as a closed source project. A close source company opened the code and created Mozilla which never existed outside of being an internal code name for a project before the code was opened.

You can claim Mozilla had the the ideal of free software specifically because it was created for that purpose. Netscape saw it's demise and created an open source project called Mozilla. This was circa 98 with the specific intent of being an

In March 1998, Netscape released most of the code base for its popular Netscape Communicator suite under an open source license. The name of the application developed from this would be Mozilla, coordinated by the newly created Mozilla Organization, at the mozilla.org Web site. Although large pa

So how should one be "on our side" while still providing a technical means for rental of non-free videos on demand? Or has FSF declared that not only all software but also all cultural works must be free?

PC games that aren't massively multiplayer are typically purchased rather than rented, except in the case of F2P games with an abusive energy mechanic. Movies, on the other hand, tend to be watched once unless they're A. cult classics or B. animated movies for single-digit-year-olds.

With the number of times/. posters point out how RMS arrived at some conclusion well before so many other people, and wrote something illustrating the point and his rationale, I would hope/. posters would recall that.

More DRM isn't going to play out well for the public as it has already failed for those who enjoy leveraging their fair-use rights, reading/viewing something in another way, and more. RMS's ethics-backed rationale against DRM and nonfree software (as opposed to a developmental methodology that accepts practical convenience at the cost of our civil liberties) is simply invaluable. Snowden's revelations bring RMS's long-held objections to nonfree software into sharp focus all the more.

"... the binary blob won't be included, and won't be downloaded without the user's consent."

Do you realize that every time anyone installs a new version of Firefox, the former configuration is over-written to include a maintenance service that gives Mozilla Foundation control over the user's computer? At present, that configuration can be changed back to avoid that control, but understanding how to re-configure Firefox to avoid constant outside control is not something most users understand.

To me, the direction Mozilla Foundation is going is scary. Maybe there is "user consent" now, but won't be later. Maybe "user consent" will be available only to technically-knowledgeable people.